The room had been emptied. Heavy curtains covered boarded-up windows. Was that to stop the undead from seeing the lights from inside? Or to stop people? Or to stop satellite surveillance? Unless he was going to break the glass, it didn’t matter. In the middle of the room was a table. On it was a pile of clothes. Next to it was a bucket. On the table, next to the clothes, was a bar of soap.
“Wash, and change your clothes,” the sergeant said.
Tom turned around. “Seriously?”
“Wash. Change. It’s not complicated,” the man said. His rifle was held across his chest, but a private had his pointing at Tom’s head. The corporal held the stun-gun, aimed at Tom’s chest. Addison hadn’t followed them. Tom wondered why.
Waiting for the trick, he stripped off his dirt-encrusted rags. He took his time. Three guards was too many. He might manage two. One would be better. He threw water and soap on his body, getting as much on the floor as on himself. Any hope they might step nearer to hurry him along, slip on the suds, and present him with his opportunity didn’t pan out. The guards stood in the door, seemingly disinterested.
The clothes were a suit and white shirt. They weren’t his, and weren’t a great fit, but it gave him the shape of what was going to happen next.
“Don’t I get a tie?” he asked.
There was no answer from his guards.
“What about shoes? No?” He put his boots back on and pulled on the jacket. “What now?”
“Wait,” the sergeant said.
Tom sat on the edge of the desk. “Which one of you killed the president?” he asked. There was no answer, nor even any reaction from the three men. “You know this is folly,” he said. “The world’s tearing itself apart, and you’re trying to build a castle on quicksand. Addison just wants power, you know that, right?”
No answer.
“He’s killed everyone else between him and the top. All the other members of the cabal. He’s killed politicians and journalists, scientists, and anyone else who witnessed what he’s done. He’ll kill you, too.” Nothing. “But of course, you know that, don’t you?” There was a slight flicker as the corporal glanced at the sergeant. “Yes, of course you do. Addison didn’t kill them himself. It was you. You’re the assassins, aren’t you? Did you plant the bomb on Air Force Two? Did you kill the speaker? Did you kill Farley?”
“Shut up!” the corporal hissed, raising the stun-gun. Before he could fire, the sergeant grabbed the barrel, pushing it up to point at the ceiling.
“Look at the water, you fool,” the sergeant said. “He wants you to fire.” The room was sloped. The water was slowly tricking around the feet of the guards.
“So you killed them. How?” Tom asked. “It’s not as if I’ll be able to tell anyone.”
“You want to know?” the sergeant asked. He took a step forward. Another. “All right.” He moved lightning fast, slamming the butt of the rifle into Tom’s stomach. Tom doubled over.
“They need your face and mouth,” the sergeant said. “No one said anything about the rest of you.” He drew a long knife from his belt. “You don’t need your fingers. You don’t need your legs. If I were you, I’d shut up.”
Tom picked himself up, made a show of brushing an imaginary speck off the suit, and perched again on the edge of the desk. He was revising his plan of attack.
It was two hours before Addison returned.
“Is it done?” the sergeant asked.
“Everything’s in place,” Addison said. “The message has been sent. There is no turning back. In a few hours, it will be over.” There was something about the tone. Now that Tom was listening for it, he heard the slight edge of deference in Addison’s voice. The guards didn’t work for him. Presumably they worked for Powell. Tom found himself smiling again. He could guess who, after himself, would be the next person for these people to kill. Addison wasn’t long for this world. He took comfort in that.
“Good,” the sergeant said.
“Bring him,” Addison said.
“Where’s Powell?” Tom asked. “I hoped I’d get a chance to say goodbye to him. Or is he already dead?”
Addison turned around and walked down the corridor, but Tom caught the look between the corporal and the sergeant. It wasn’t much, but it was something.
He was directed out of that room, and toward the one in which he’d been so briefly interrogated. The chair was gone. In front of the heavy black curtains were a wooden desk and an office chair, with the camera facing them.
“There is a script on the desk,” Addison said. “You are going to sit at the desk and read the script into the camera.”
Tom walked over to the desk. The chair would be too heavy to throw. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“We might, Tom,” Addison said. “When the time is right. For now you should glory in the wonder of being alive.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Powell,” Tom said. “You’re starting to sound like him. Where is he? Or have you already killed him?”
“Still trying to sow division?” Addison said. “Read the script, Tom. Learn your lines.”
There was nothing else on the desk. More to buy time, he picked up the sheet of paper, and scanned it. “I’m accepting responsibility for the bombings last month.”
“You are the chief suspect,” Addison said. “The evidence has already been gathered. Future generations will need a villain. Who better than you?”
“You want me to say I created the virus?”
“No,” Addison said. “You hired the scientist who did.”
“Ah, yes. You mean Ayers?”
“That is a fortuitous piece of luck,” Addison said. “We won’t name her immediately, of course. The hunt for her will be a useful distraction as we rebuild.”
“Rebuild?” Tom laughed. “And it says I killed Max and General Carpenter, and others in the line of succession. You don’t want me to name them? No, wait, let me guess, you’re not sure that they’re all dead. That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want me claiming responsibility for the death of someone who might be alive.” That small flame of hope flickered back into life. Not for him, but that there still might be some group who could organize a recovery. There might still be a chance for people like Helena, Kaitlin, and the children.
“You have the script. You’ll say what’s on it,” Addison said. The nervousness was clear in his voice now. Tom decided to amplify it.
“Max was your friend,” he said. “You’ve known him since high school. How could you do this to him?”
“Politicians don’t have friends, just favors they haven’t called in.” It was another uncharacteristic line, something rehearsed.
“How long have you planned this?” Tom asked. “Since Max won in November, right? You’re the reason the plans were brought forward, or to be more accurate, you’re the one who brought them forward. You knew that when Max went down his chief of staff would go down with him. They might have offered you power, but you knew that you would die. So you acted first. You came up with your own plan. That’s why I wasn’t killed. You wanted me alive because someone close to Max has to be blamed. If it’s not you, then it had to be me. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Addison sighed. “Answers only lead to more questions. Politics is a play acted out on the world stage. We are but players doing our part. Yours is to accept responsibility. Do you deny you have none?”
“So it should be you standing here, making this confession?” Tom put the script down. “And if I don’t want to say any of this?”
Addison smiled, as if he’d been waiting for those very words. “I said that this is being enacted on a world stage, Tom. Is there no one, anywhere in the world, for whom you would not sacrifice yourself? Now. Next month. Next year. You see, that was always your problem. You never took the long-term view. Even as we speak, the crisis is coming to a head. In a few short hours, our enemies will be destroyed. The military, currently deployed to stand guard over remote rail and road links, will begin
the battle for our towns and cities. To retake the nation will require sacrifice. To ensure that it is made willingly, the people will need a purpose. What better one is there than hunting the man who destroyed the world? When the dust has settled, when these creatures have died, their bodies burned, hatred of you will unite us. It truly is a higher calling, Tom.”
“I’d say you’re insane, but you’re not,” Tom said. “You’re just desperate. Your plans have fallen apart. None of that will come to pass.”
“Read the script, and you will live, for now. If you do not, then the only person on this planet you care about will die.”
They would kill him anyway, that was obvious. There were too many in the room for him to make his move. He should have struck earlier. Now, he might have left it too late. He picked up the script again. “You’ll release all of this gradually?” he asked, thinking furiously, trying to spot the escape route he’d missed, the angle he’d overlooked.
“Precisely,” Addison said. “A few million are dead. A few million more Americans will die in the days to come, but the world will belong to the survivors. There will be no foe. America will rise, higher and further than before. We shall be a beacon in the wilderness. The beginning of a new history. Read the script. We both know you will. Your protest has been noted, but you have no choice.”
Tom let his shoulders slump. “Do you have a pen?”
“What?”
“I’d like to make a few changes.”
“You’ll read it as it is.”
“Look, Chuck, I get how you want this to play out. You want to keep me alive just long enough for my death to bring a nation together. You’ve not seen what I have. The country is tearing itself apart. I don’t think it can be saved, but this twisted ruse of yours might actually work. You won’t be the one to lead the country, even if you won’t accept it, but the people will need a villain, so let it be me. But it needs to be done properly. This?” He waved the piece of paper. “No one will believe it. Let me make a few changes.”
“Like what?”
“Like saying I made two unsuccessful attempts on Max’s life before I killed him,” Tom said.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to create any conspiracy theories that he was in league with me. You want him to be an unwitting dupe. The unwilling pawn that had kingship thrust upon him. What you’ve written will give rise to doubt, which will lead to insurrection and war. That will prevent a crop being planted, and starvation will bring an end to civilization before the year is out.”
“Here.” Addison pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and threw it to Tom. “You understand that it’s a recording. It’s not going out live. Go too far off script, and we’ll start again.”
Tom shrugged. “I’ll be dead. I don’t care what people think of me. I do care that there are people left to think something.” He made a few random notes on the piece of paper. The pen wasn’t a great weapon. He’d only get one shot, one thrust at Addison’s throat.
“And here,” he began, gesturing at the paper, hoping Addison would take another step nearer, but before he could continue the door opened. A man with a beard too scraggly for the uniform came in.
“What?” Addison asked.
The bearded man held out a handset. “You have to take this.”
Addison took the receiver and held it up to his ear. “What?” he exclaimed. He stepped out into the corridor.
“So,” Tom said to the guards that remained. “What do you think the odds are that he’ll kill you before you have a chance to kill him?”
They didn’t reply. One was watching him, the other two were glancing at the door, just as curious as he was as to who that call was from, and what Addison was being told.
“So who are you, really?” Tom asked. “You’re not military. Mercenaries, is that it?” They didn’t give a response. “It’s a funny thing, truth. It always has a way of getting out. The more elaborate the lies, the more easily they fall apart.”
He was talking to himself. He looked at the pen. It wasn’t mightier than the sword, and certainly not the assault rifle. The energy that had been driving him a moment before had gone. It was over. He wasn’t going to read the script, and so they would shoot him and fabricate some other story. It hardly mattered. He’d tried to save the world. He’d failed, and done it in a spectacular fashion, but at least he’d tried.
Addison came back in. “Change of plans. Harris, start the chopper. No, wait, we can’t fly. Those APCs, are they shielded?”
“You mean it’s happened?” the sergeant asked. “I thought you said it wouldn’t. That it couldn’t.”
“Well, it has. The APCs, they’re meant to be shielded. Can we use them?”
“No, that’s why we’ve got the old trucks,” the sergeant said.
“Then we take those, and leave now,” Addison said.
“Should have done that this morning,” the sergeant said. There was no trace of respect in his voice. “What about the prisoner?”
“Bring him,” Addison said.
Tom slid his hand, still holding the pen, into his pocket. Wish for a miracle, and it might just happen. He forced his face into a scowl to hide his utter jubilation at the unexpected reprieve.
Chapter 13 - Fire, Returned
Location Unknown
His hands were cuffed behind him with plastic ties. It was done with such haste that they weren’t tightly bound. Given time, he thought he could work them loose. As he was hustled from the room, he realized it wasn’t because the guard aimed to help him escape, but that the soldiers wanted to leave the facility as quickly as possible. Addison had asked the sergeant if the vehicles were shielded. Taken with all else they’d said, the puzzle began to rearrange itself so the pieces formed a new, more terrible picture.
Two other guards ran past them. “Are we going to the base?” one called.
“No. The mine,” the sergeant replied.
Tom was shoved outside, toward the green-painted vehicles. Two of the police cruisers were missing, but there wasn’t time to see anything more before he was pushed inside a battered four-by-four. The interior had been refitted, but that couldn’t disguise that it had been built in the 1970s. In fact, the dashboard looked as if it had been replaced with controls that were a lot older.
“Retrofitted against an EMP, right?” he asked. “This is Prometheus. The Russians and Chinese are finishing what the zombies began.” That was the apocalyptic nightmare he’d been trying to thwart before the outbreak, and which he’d almost forgotten when the dead began attacking the living. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Shut up,” the corporal said.
The sergeant was by the door. “Hell if I’ll wait. In!” he bellowed at the third guard. The man got in the driver’s seat, the sergeant in the passenger side of the cab. “Go!”
“We were meant to—” the driver began.
“Let him burn,” the sergeant interrupted, “because I’m damned if I’m going to burn with him.”
“You said we’re going to a mine? You think there’s any that’ll be deep enough?” Tom asked.
The corporal slammed his rifle into Tom’s face. He rocked back in his seat, forcing the pain down, using the motion to try to free his hands. There wasn’t enough give. A hood was thrust over his head. It didn’t matter. He let his head loll forward, pretending he was insensible, as he worked on the plastic cuffs.
The vehicle bounced along an uneven surface, picking up speed, lurching left, then right. Were those turns? The vehicle hit something, and bounced up and down. Was that a pothole? Were they even on a road? Or had they collided with one of the undead?
“After today,” the corporal said, “this is it. It’s gone on long enough.”
“You know what the boss said,” the sergeant replied.
“I don’t care. This isn’t what we were paid for.”
“Fine, if we survive the next hour, you can do what you like,” the sergeant said. “But you’ve got to tell—
Watch out! Zombie!”
The truck swerved, but not enough. There was a jarring jolt as something hit the front. As the corporal swore, Tom shifted his leg, moving his hands to where he could just, just reach the pen. With the next lurching bounce, he pulled it from his pocket. Gripping the pen awkwardly between fingers and palm, he stretched his wrists so the plastic ties were taut. Stabbing the pen into his wrist as often as into the plastic, he worked at the cuffs.
The vehicle took a steep turn, and he shifted his feet, bracing them on the floor. There wouldn’t be time to take the hood off. He’d have to dive sideways, wrestle the rifle from the guard, and fire blindly at the driver. If he survived the crash, he’d… he’d worry about that if he did.
“How long?” the corporal asked.
“Twenty minutes,” the driver said.
“I meant until,” the corporal said.
The vehicle rocked. Tom pulled, and the plastic snapped. His hands were free. He took a breath, waiting for the next jolt.
“We’ve got time,” the sergeant said. “Plenty of time. Plenty of—”
Tom was thrown forward. Everything went white. The truck slewed to the left and slammed to a halt. Someone screamed. It wasn’t Tom. He pulled off the hood, shaking his head to try to get rid of the ringing in his ears. The corporal’s head lolled forward, blood dripping from a savage gash on his temple. Tom grabbed the man’s rifle, aiming it at the truck’s cab. The driver was moaning. The sergeant was unconscious. Tom put his shoulder to the door, pushed it open, and fell outside. He staggered to his feet and froze. A mushroom cloud squatted over the land, not nearly far enough away.
Part of him had known that this was going to happen. That this was why they had wanted these ancient vehicles that had no circuitry for an EMP to fry. The sight still cut him to the quick. A bomb had been dropped on America. But how far away? Ten miles? Twenty miles? Thirty? He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t think.
Here We Stand (Book 2): Divided (Surviving The Evacuation) Page 14
